I had my property selectively cut a few years ago. I told the forester, who was provided free of charge by a mill company, what I wanted, which is similar to you. I had him save as many of the oaks and beeches as possible but enough to improve the mast of those that were left and let some light in. I had all skid rows and deck graded and seeded with a wildlife mix (mostly cool season grasses and clover). There are some brush piles and a few hollow logs but not a completely trashed look, it's more park like and I could have taken some of the money and had it cleaned up even more but it provides shelter for wildlife. I've seen more deer, and now bear, on the property since. One thing I did was go look at the work the logger had done for others with similar objectives and that gave me an idea of what it would look like. I was really pleased with the service I got from the paper mill forester. He cruised the land, gave me an estimate, found a logger, found a buyer for the saw wood (paper mill only wanted the small stuff), wrote the contract and acted as a liason; all for free. Just a warning though, even if you have the treetops all cleared if there's any sunlight getting to the forest floor you're going to have a thick jungle of briars and undergrowth (which is a good thing) so you'll lose that neat appearance anyway. Have them do the logging in the winter when the bark is hard, you'll have less damage to the trees you leave behind that way and the wood price is usually higher. Here's some shots of what my property looked like after two years.
This is the deck area where they loaded the trucks. A good food plot area in the middle of the woods.
Topic: Hunting/Improving small hunting tracts (Read 484 times)
